Spam-it-up Fridays!!!

Attention. Attention. I would like to post the longest piece of creative spam to ever appear upon the Internet today.

(someone call up the Guinness Foundation and ask them to send me a cold one…)

So – what will I spam?

Well, I’ve got some beans in the refrigerator. Spam does go AWFULLY good with beans. But I don’t have a tin of Spam – and I don’t feel like stomping out through the blizzard to buy myself a tin of Spam at the grocery – and besides, I’m pretty certain that Robin isn’t REALLY talking about that high-caloric greasy-sweet salted-to-perfection pack-the-clotted-fat-around-your-arteries-and-wait-to-die goodness that men call SPAM.

Naw, she’s talking about the phrase that we Facebook Group followers have come to fear and loathe…BUY MY BOOK!

But hey – it’s Spam-it-up Friday – and I REALLY want to tell you about this book I wrote.

I really do. I’m going to burst if I don’t tell it to you.

Don’t make me burst on you!

The book is called TATTERDEMON.

All right – so it isn’t FREE.

It isn’t even CHEAP.

But it is nearly 400 pages cram-pack-loaded with pure scarecrow entertainment.

It is a wild exciting no-holds-barred hayride through a field of indescribable horror.

So let me try and describe it to you!

Imagine you’ve just killed your husband. Your loud-mouth bullying abusive husband. What, you’re a guy? Work with me. Imagine you’re a woman and you’ve just killed your husband – on account of the man was really just too mean and stupid to let live for moment longer.

Only problem is, you’ve gone and buried him in a field that is cursed by a witch who was unjustly murdered and buried in that very same field – THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO!

Now – anyone who has ever read a horror novel or seen a horror movie KNOWS damn well that if you go and execute and bury somebody unjustly – well, sooner or later they’re going to come back at you. We’re talking rise up from the dead – and before you get to squawking something along the lines of “OH MY DEAR-DYING-GOD not another spud-stomping zombie novel! Somebody kill me and raise me back up and kill me again before I read another word!” – think again.

This isn’t your granddaddy’s zombie novel.

This isn’t a zombie novel AT ALL!

It’s scarecrows.

Got it?

So what if that husband – we’ll call him Vic, on account of that’s what his name is – rises up from the dead? Along with the spirit of your father – the same one that your mother killed for reasons of her own – rises up in spirit-form along with Vic? What if that witch comes back and what if everything that was EVER killed or buried or just-plain-died in that field starts coming back?

Then you throw into that mix a couple of spree-killing convicts, a voodoo-practicing sheriff’s deputy, a peeping-tom postal worker, an anorexic ex-circus fat woman, a sheriff who has got a secret hidden in his downstairs freezer, a broken-hearted ex-marine trucker who is terrified of his ex-wife and Earl Toad – the world’s shortest action hero and things REALLY begin to heat up.

Well – things are just naturally bound to get exciting – now aren’t they?

Now – be honest with yourself – if you find yourself the least bit intrigued by this description – or even the least bit amused by this cathartic rant of pure undiluted liquid Spam – (now there’s a concept!) – or even the least bit sorry for my poor rusted out backbone that is going be tested by another bout of snow-shoveling later today or possibly even tonight – why don’t you give in to the spirits of Spam Almighty and go and buy yourself a copy of this here e-book.

It’s available on Kindle.

You can also hunt it up on Kobo.

The damn book has been sunk beneath the radar and I could REALLY use a burst of sales right about now to kickstart this puppy into going viral – SO SHARE THIS POSTING AND GO AND BUY YOURSELF A COPY OF TATTERDEMON today!

http://www.amazon.com/TATTERDEMON-ebook/dp/B0081UEXPE

It is also available on Kobo for all of you wonderful Kobo wielders!

http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Tatterdemon/book-2UgrygnVO0eCN47XmyEKZQ/page1.html?s=vmkj5EeFhU-dYopTQyQ8kA&r=1

 

 

 

So – how do you like your Spam???

 

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

COFFIN HOP 2012

Welcome Coffin Hoppers.

Every year a group of dedicated horror writers band together in a cross-blog event entitled COFFIN HOP.

http://coffinhop.wordpress.com/

Today, I would like to do my bit by posting my short-short tale “Beat Well”. It’s definitely my favorite Halloween yarn.

Read it once, chew on it – and then read it again. At 175 words it won’t take long.

 

This story came to my on a factory table saw. I wrote it down on a scrap of particle board. I had just watched the movie HALLOWEEN, and had the vision of those opening credits burning in my brain. I sent the story to twenty four magazines. Twenty four rejections quickly followed. The twenty fifth magazine TERROR TIME AGAIN, bought and paid for the story. It went on to be republished in SPWAO’s “best of” anthology ALPHA GALLERY; and David Kubicek’s original anthology OCTOBER DREAMS. I use the story all the time in my high school writing workshops to demonstrate the use of multiple voices in a story. Enjoy. Beat Well Let’s play a trick… DONTCALLME… on old punkinhead. THAT. nyah nyah punkinhead YOU BROKE IT. nyah nyah pun… I GOT YOU NOW. letgoletgoletgo I’LL SHOW YOU A TRICK, I’ll SHOW YOU * * * (I remember poppy, he showed me how, he showed me first. First you slice opent the top. Dig out the pulp, thank god no seeds. Gouge out eyes, nose, and mouth. There. Oh. One more thing. There. Jack o’ lanterns.) * * * Old John lived way up on Carpenter’s Hill, so it wasn’t until morning when they found them. Propped against old John’s freshly whitewashed fence, staring sightlessly down upon the town below. The town where they had lived. The three boys still wore the costumes their folks bought at the five and dime. Shattered upon the ground was the remains of a broken jackolantern. The boys were dead. Hidden within the skull of each boy was a tiny candle, flickering quietly, where once only childish dreams burned. They found old John in the kitchen, making pumpkin pie. THE END

 

***

If you liked this particular yarn why not check out my latest e-book release, FLASH VIRUS – EPISODE ONE.

 

 

The end of the world – as told by a teenager.

You can read more about FLASH VIRUS – EPISODE ONE right here!

http://stevevernonstoryteller.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/flash-virus-episode-one-a-preview/

Episode two is due out later this week.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

The Secret Behind A Strong First Line!

“Many years later, in front of the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia would remember that distant afternoon his father took him to see ice.” –  ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez  

I recently was asked to answer a few questions regarding the importance of a good first line.

So naturally I decided I had to blog about this issue. It is here – in the entries of my blog – that I feel the absolute freedom to express myself as I see fit.

And also – this is a great excuse for me to avoid working on my latest novel.

So what’s a good first line?

“The bullet hit Santa Claus beneath the left eye.” – SOFT TARGET – by Stephen Hunter

That’s a good one that I just spotted the other day at the bookstore. I saw this book, SOFT TARGET, by Stephen Hunter – sitting on the shelf at a bookstore.

Now, I like Stephen Hunter’s work.

I haven’t liked every one of his books – but I liked a lot of them.

So – how do I know if I want to read this book?

Well – we could try looking at the cover.

So what does that cover tell me?

Well, it tells me that it’s a STEPHEN HUNTER novel.

And it tells me that at least ONE BULLET is going to be fired.

That’s important – if you’re a fan of Stephen Hunter novels. Stephen Hunter is one of those authors who has evolved into a NAME BRAND AUTHOR. I see “Stephen Hunter” on the cover – right off the bat I want to pick it up.

This is something all of us authors need to strive for.

I’m not there yet. There are readers out there who say – “Dang, this is a Steve Vernon novel. I’d better pick it up.”

That’s true. There are a few of them.

But most folks will see “Steve Vernon” on the cover and they’ll say – “Steve who?”

So, let’s say that “Stephen Hunter” ISN’T a brand name author yet. Let’s say he’s just a hopeful wannbe.

Let’s say he’s me.

So – the average reader is going to look at that book cover and say – okay, so a bullet is going to get shot. Probably at a soft target.

That still doesn’t mean that the reader is going to bother reaching for his wallet.

You see – that’s what a writer wants.

We want to have the reader reaching for his wallet.

Try and think of it this way. He reads that book in the bookstore – without reaching for his wallet – and you don’t see that royalty check. If you don’t see that royalty check then your bills don’t get paid. If your bills don’t get paid you wind up out in the street – and that’s the end of your writing career because it is AWFULLY hard to run a self publishing career successfully if you have to resort to plugging your computer into a fire hydrant.

It’s a little like that whole “tree falling in the forest without making a sound” koa.

“If a writer does not receive a royalty check then he didn’t write diddly-squat.”

Or at least that’s how I run my kitchen anyway.

“It was a pleasure to burn.” – FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury

So, if you aren’t a BRAND NAME WRITER – how do you get that reader to the whole “reaching for his wallet” stage of activity?

Well, for starters, you ought to have a REALLY good first line.

Just think about it. That is one of the first things that a potential reader will do. He’ll flip open the book and run his finger down the first page, moving his lips zubba-zubba-zubba while he does so.

Or at least I do, anyway.

That’s a critical factor for me in making my own mind up about reaching for that wallet. I read the first line or two just to get a better idea if this book is ACTUALLY something that I want to own.

“When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.” – FIREBREAK by Richard Stark

So, IS a first line that important?

I want you to just stop for a moment and try and imagine all of the many times that you said something stupid to a person that you were trying to impress right from the get-go. It might have been a boss that you were hoping would hire you. It might have been a hottie that you were trying to make a connection with. Just try and remember those many times that you opened your mouth and something dumb fell out of it.

A first line is a first impression.

A first line is that taste of honey that says to the reader – “My God – you have just found something worth spending time and money on.”

A first line is a well-dangled fishing lure.

A first line can be a boot to the side of the head.

An ambush.

A welcome-to-the-deep-end-bubba.

 This is the saddest story I have ever heard. — THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford

So you are probably expecting me to tell you the real SECRET to creating a truly kickass first line – aren’t you?

That’s why you started reading this blog – didn’t you?

You want a paint-by-number kit that you can take on home and use on your next bit of creative scribbling.

Well – I am truly sorry – but there is nothing EASY about writing – except maybe saying that you do it.

And let me tell you – saying ain’t doing.

So – where do I find my FIRST LINE?

Well, sometimes it jumps right out at me. Sometimes I see it just as clear as a clear blue day – floating there on the top of the page – saying something along the lines of – “Well, what are you waiting for – write me down!”

I’ve got a few lines like that. Some of them I’ve already used. Some of them are sitting in a notebook – just waiting for the rest of the story to come along.

But mostly it isn’t all that EASY at all.

Sometimes I’ll find my first line about three chapters into the first draft.

That’s what writing is like sometimes.

You can’t just sit around and wait for your first line to show up. You have to diver right in and start lining them words up and sooner or later your first line will see all that commotion and it will push past all them other lines you’ve lined up and jump right out into the lead.

So how will you know that it’s your first line?

You’ll know.

Finding a good first line is a little like finding true love.

I’m not talking love like – Gee, I really love to eat pizza with my feet stuck out on the coffee table – I am talking big true love in BIG FREAKING CAPITAL LETTERS L-O-(my god I’m going to die if she doesn’t notice me now) – V-E!!!

Accept no substitutes.

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea 

Damn, I really love that last one. THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA has got to be one of my favorite novellas ever.

So what about bad first lines?

What about those clunkers that start some books – usually something about Joe Nobody getting out of bed and studying his own face in the bathroom mirror – thinking deep thoughts and wondering what this day will bring before he gets to the end of the story and gets run over by a bus?

Let me tell you.

A bad first line is like hanging a men’s room sign on the ladies washroom door in the middle of an all-you-can-drink-beer-athon.

It is bound to lead to some awkward and highly uncomfortable situations.

I mean – them women’s rooms don’t have any hang-on-the-wall urinals – which is why there are usually longer line-ups to the lady’s room than to the men’s – unless it is an all-you-can-drink-beer-athon.

A bad first line is a KEEP OFF THE GRASS sign at a lawn party.

A bad first line is like telling your blind date that the doctor swore on a stack of e-pirated Bibles that your love-cooties were only directly communicable on months with an “R” in them.

A bad first line is the Gee-I was-certain-that-was-just-a-heavy-sounding-fart-before-I-unsqueezed in the dress pants of existence.

I’m not saying that it’s pretty.

So let me leave you with three more first lines.

 It was the day my grandmother exploded. —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road

Elmer Gantry was drunk. —Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry 

“Preacher Abraham Fell stared down at the witch, Thessaly Cross, breathing like he’d run for a good long stretch.” – TATTERDEMON by Steve Vernon 

Which you can order on Amazon.

or on Kobo

or on Smashwords

or – if you aren’t motivated by any sort of gratitude over the five or ten minutes of amusing blogginess to rush out and download my book – why not read the review instead.

yours in storytelling,

Steve

(call me Ishmael)

Vernon

Author Style Cooking…

It’s been a hectic morning.

I got up early and made a man’s breakfast for my wife. She’s a dance and fitness instructor and Saturdays are particularly busy.

I chopped up a fat old onion and a couple of leftover potatoes and fried them up nice and crispy. Meanwhile, I grated some cheese into cracked four eggs.

Scooped the potatoes and onions out of the pan.

Drop some bread into the toaster.

Run upstairs with a good cup of coffee and set it on her bedside just as the alarm goes off.

Run downstairs and throw the eggs and cheese into the pan.

Good eating.

Then, after I got home from the groceries I cut up some chicken and sizzled it with a little olive oil, garlic and butter in the bottom of my largest pot. Then I chopped a couple of good red potatoes, a yellow zucchini, an onion, and threw them in on top of the browning chicken. Then I dumped in a bag of baby carrots – which are usually just regular carrots whittled down – and drained a can of chick peas and chucked them. Dumped two cartons of broth on top. Sometimes I like to make my own broth but I was in a hurry today.

Lastly, I let the whole mess sit and simmer – maybe until dinner, maybe until supper – at the lowest possible temperature. I can smell it up here while I type and MAN – it sure smells good.

I call it peasant soup.

I wrote the recipe while I was grocery shopping.

I cook this again it will most likely be different.

But still taste good.

 

Do you see how easy that all sounds – because it is. Hacked up chicken, hacked up vegetables and simmer in a pot. Cooking isn’t all that hard. Take what you have and throw it in a pot.

Writing a blog entry is just that easy as well.

I take what I have and I throw it in a pot.

Right after this I have to get back to working on a manuscript for a YA novel. I’m about 36000 words into what should wind up at about 50000.

How am I doing it?

I’m slicing up what I’ve got…

…and throwing it into a pot to simmer.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Interview with Author Steve Vernon

Here’s a brand new interview with me – for those folks who haven’t tired of hearing me talk about myself .

Interview with Author Steve Vernon.

 

 

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

SAMPLE SUNDAY: MIDNIGHT HAT TRICK – read the excerpt

I’ve recently released a collection of three novellas of Canadian horror entitled MIDNIGHT HAT TRICK.

The three novellas include SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME – which is available separately and is a novella of hockey and vampires.

The second novella in MIDNIGHT HAT TRICK is entitled HAMMURABI ROAD. It was originally released in trade paperback and hardcover from Gray Friars Press in a two novella collection entitled HARD ROADS. The book is out of print although you still might be able to find copies of it out there. I’ve even got a few sitting on my bookshelf.

The third novella is entitled NOT JUST ANY OLD GHOST STORY – and it has never been published before.

The collection is available in Kobo format – just hit the link on the illustration at the bottom of this page to download a copy – and it will soon be available in Kindle and other formats.

 

NOT JUST ANY OLD GHOST STORY

I have heard an awful lot of stories and I have even told a few of them myself and nearly every story I have ever heard or told was born from my dad. I guess this one is no different and why should it be? My dad has told me nearly every story that I have ever learned and twice as much as I’ll ever be able to forget.

And even now I remember it all.

He has told me about snow snakes and mud trout. He has told me how dreams were nothing more than stories waiting to be born. He has told me that the ocean was made out of tears cried by a woman who sits upon the bottom sobbing and shaking so hard that the waves toss and turn in their sharing of her sorrow. He has told me how my home province of Nova Scotia once served as Glooscap’s bed and Prince Edward Island was the pillow for his head.

“But Cape Breton was the old dark fooler’s canoe, you bet,” Dad would tell me. “Hunting or fishing, when Glooscap wanted to get himself anywhere handy to interesting he came right straight up to old Cape Breton Island.”

My dad has told me how the raven stole the sun from the heart of winter and traded his song to keep it. He has told me how icicles are nothing more than snow-angel-tears wept down for all of the snowflakes that never reached a child’s out stretched tongue. He even claims that the flounder got to be so ugly-faced a fish after losing an ill-planned swimming race with a fast-moving skate.

“That old flounder pulled a face in disgust and it just stayed stuck,” Dad told me. “Believe you me, nothing sticks harder than regret.”

And maybe that’s so. We all learn to carry so much damn regret. We drag it around behind ourselves and we wear it sewn into the inner lining of our shadow. I think that the heart of every ghost story ever told is awash with the soft faded autumnal color of pure unredeemable regret.

“Why do you tell me so many stories?” I once asked my Dad.

“A man is nothing more than the stories he knows,” Dad answered. “And here in Nova Scotia we grow our stories long, rambling and deep. Life isn’t all about cable television, cell phones and newspaper. There are the silences that whisper between the words, those secrets not shared that linger long after any story ever told. Believe you me, mister man, there is a tale to be told for every wave that washes the shores of Nova Scotia.”

This story is one of them, I guess.

#######

“Get in,” the trucker said, so in I got.

I had been standing here on the side of the road just short of the east most end of the city limits of Toronto, my thumb hooked hopefully into the contrary-minded west wind, just wishing for a ride when that big old semi rig pulled up.

When it hissed to a halt I was halfway lost in a day dream, wander-bound and telling myself a slow quiet sort of nothing-thoughted story, staring off down the highway and thinking on how absolutely miraculous it was that this single patch of road could tie one end of our country to the other and by nature must touch nearly every other road in North America. It is like my dad always said – bloodstreams and building blocks – a body sometimes wonders just how much of the world is made out of nothing more than itself made big.

I clambered into the truck before the driver could think to change his mind.

“Strap yourself on in,” the trucker told me.

The trucker was built big, even sitting down. All shoulders and arms looking like he had strength enough to tear that steering wheel off the dashboard and tie it into a forget-me-knot about my gawking neck. He looked like he had been poured out of concrete into the seat of that semi-truck and let harden for a while. He reached over and shook my hand clear down to my toe bones. I counted my fingers when he let me have them back again.

They seemed mostly intact.

“Been out there long?” he asked.

“Long enough,” I said.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t nearly as terrified of him as I was scared of what might be waiting for me back home in Deeper Harbour. Going back home will do that to a fellow if he has any sense of history or style. Memories will scare you if you think on them hard enough.

“So where are you headed?” the trucker asked me while I was busy strapping myself into the shotgun seat.

“Nova Scotia,” I answered, keeping it simple. Deeper Harbour would have been far more information than he needed to hear. When you are hitching a ride it is best to keep your answers comfortably vague. Facts will only get in your way. The road isn’t a place for conviction or scrupulous detail.

“I’m going that way too,” he allowed. “Halifax.”

“Good,” I said. “That suits me fine.”

I figured I could easily hitch the rest of the way up the Cabot Trail to Deeper Harbour, once I got myself handy to Halifax.

“You got a name?” he asked.

 

 

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

NOW AVAILABLE ON KOBO!

There is magic in the number three.

The three stooges. The three wise men. The three little pigs. The three weird sisters.

And now – MIDNIGHT HAT TRICK – a collection of three wonderfully chilling novels from Nova Scotia storyteller Steve Vernon.

HAMMURABI ROAD is a dark tale of retribution, backwoods justice and getting closer to a black bear than you ever dreamed possible. The story starts with the eternal triangle – three men in a pick-up truck – two in front and one duct-taped in back.NOT JUST ANY OLD GHOST STORY is a story about coming home. It is a story that will take you to the root of storytelling. A young man – the son of an honest-to-god Nova Scotia storyteller hitchhikes home only to find that his father has fallen in love with a dream.SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME is a fast and fun read that asks the question – what would a bunch of over-the-hill old-time hockey players from Northern Labrador deal with a tour bus full of vampires? If you are having a hard time dealing with that concept – just throw the movie SLAPSHOT into a blender with the movie 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and hit frappe.

This isn’t high literature, you understand. This is a cold beer, a hot cheeseburger and a warm summer day.

“Steve Vernon gets it right. SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME hits all the right notes with me. A wonderful cast of characters, great dialogue and an evil bus full of vicious vampires.” – FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND

“This genre needs new blood and Steve Vernon is quite a transfusion.” – Edward Lee, author of GOON and THE BIGHEAD

“Steve Vernon is the real deal.” – Richard Chizmar, CEMETERY DANCE MAGAZINE

 

What other famous “threes” can you remember???

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

A Brand New Review for DEVIL TREE!

Please check out the brand new review of my horror/historical novel DEVIL TREE over at Amazon.com.

 

http://www.amazon.com/review/R59O033RBB6ZY/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_cm_cr_notf_APPROVED_fbt

 

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Do-Overs and Detours – NOW AVAILABLE IN TRADE PAPERBACK FOR THIRTY PERCENT OFF

 

 

Now available in trade paperback – and on sale now for THIRTY PERCENT OFF!

Detours are amazing creatures. They can shortcut your existence or lead you down a forever long road that will linger far into the distant reaches of eternity. It is these unexpected tangents that people stumble across everyday that haunt in a frightening familiar fashion.

Wander into a laundromat and find a kind of time machine. Indulge yourself in a nasty game of baseball. Hitch a ride on a freight train with the piggyback man, entomb yourself in a trailer walled with books, take a ride on a bus that is going nowhere in particular, or just lean over an empty ocean and wait.

Detour around an overturned trailer of chickens and find a chance to do it all over again. Take a taxi ride with a very hungry passenger or a walk in the park to watch a juggler balance severed heads.

Reality will take you only so far–after that there’s nothing to rely on but faith and fear.

Fifteen stories.

Five of them, never before published.

We’ve come to the edge of the map. Let’s travel on a little further.
Table of Contents

Introduction by Richard Chizmar • Hyperactive Cleaning Power • A Fine Sacrifice • The Takashi Miike Seal of Approval • In The Dark and The Deep • Rolling Stock • Last Stand of The Great Texas Pack Rat • Gin Bottle Heaven • Voodoo Chicken Do-Over • A Prayer For The Clockwork Twister • Under The Skin, Under The Bone • Once More Round The Block • Jugular • A Wriggle of Maggot • Nail Gun Glissando • I Survived The Apocalypse… (only in Deluxe Thirteen edition) • The Tracks We Leave Behind (only in Deluxe Thirteen edition) • The End of the Road

 

“This genre needs new blood and Steve Vernon is quite a transfusion.” - Ed Lee

“Steve Vernon taps the strange fiction vein like no one before” - Hellnotes

“Steve Vernon is one of the finest new talents of horror and dark fiction” - Owl Goingback

“Steve Vernon is a hard writer to pin down – and that’s a good thing.” - Dark Scribe Magazine

“Armed with a bizarre sense of humor, a huge amount of originality, a flair for taking risks and a strong grasp of characterization – Steve’s got the chops for sure.” - Dark Discoveries

 

For more details

http://www.darkregions.com/books/do-overs-and-detours-by-steve-vernon#

 

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

An impulsive contest…

All right – you try and find a funny shot of a vampire and a hockey player…

In fact – yeah – let’s have a contest. Funniest vampire meets hockey player image by the end of Sunday evening wins a free copy of SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME!!!

Post it in your blog and link to here and let me know about your image in the comments to this blog.

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon